Before anyone rants about how this is an example of how free markets stink, let us be reminded that a key ingredient to free markets, whether they are the sales of the good or the hiring of the labor, is accurate information. Neither the laborers selling their labor nor the customers making the final purchases were much aware of what was going on here until it was too late. In a free (labor) market these people wouldn't be conned into slavery working there in the first place

No individual rich person could personally fund basic income for all Americans; it just doesn't add up. Three hundred million people in the USA. So giving each of them just one Franklin would take three billion. No rich person can handle that kind of outlay for long; when you see Mr Rich has $XX billion, that's not annual income but total accumulated.